Meanwhile, in Yantalo, Peru...

Update (Friday, 16 August, 2013): I'm leaving Yantalo this afternoon, so I won't be able to personally steward any more donations here.  However!  Your donations have already funded a gas stove is well covered (yay, no more smoke inhalation or sooty clothing/walls!), as well as a potable-water container (oh yeah, I forgot to mention she tends to boil and drink the yellowish water from the tap... I'm not sure what makes it yellow), as well as enough money to refill each of those a few times. The remaining $100ish (edit $150!) will stay here in the Luz Dina roof fund, from which money could be drawn for any other emergencies she may encounter.  Another volunteer plans to run another fund-raiser, and I'll publicize this one even more once we secure someone who actually wants to do the work of installing a new roof, and have figured out how much it will cost.  In the meantime, I'm sure the patches helped a fair amount with the leaks, and the rainy season isn't for another few months.  Thanks to all who have donated!

A sweet, 75-year old woman has lost 3 houses to earthquakes.  She built all three herself, with help from her now-deceased husband on the first, and maybe the second.  A church group cobbled this fourth house together; it wouldn’t take much of an earthquake to knock it down, too.  At least this one has 4 cement posts, purchased by the mayor, but the upper beams aren’t particularly well attached. 

   

Her uneven dirt floor is a tripping hazard, especially for a blind person with bad knees.  The roof leaks onto her bed because it’s made of corrugated sheet metal that had been discarded from other buildings.

I patched a few of small holes with silicone – the ones I could reach with a long piece of sugar-cane from a ladder – but it remains to be seen how much that actually did, and certainly didn't fix any holes in the middle of the un-stable roof, or the gaps in the mud-on-caña walls, or between those walls and the roof.

Luz Dina Villa-Corta Vazquez is blind in one eye and her other hurts to use.  Her blood pressure reaches 220; thankfully the public health clinic gives her medication for that.  I’m not sure what, if anything, can be done about her high cholesterol, anemia, and possible diabetes, but it would be nice if they gave her some pain management medicine, too, as a single pill costs about a quarter of the $3.70 that the curch gives her every… month? Two? When they can.  Those would help with her arthritis and rheumatism, so she could walk a bit better.  She still participated in the local march against domestic abuse; it’s good it was on flat ground, and not very long.

When asked what she needed, she asked, “what do you mean?  To eat?”  In general.  Wood to cook with.  Bananas.  Maybe some maracuyá or cocona (other local fruits), which the doctor said were good for her high cholesterol.  The church donates food to her; she used to plant rice for a living, but clearly couldn’t do anything of the sort any more. 

The wood burning “stove” is situated in a lean-to off the back side of the one-room house, such that the smoke (and there’s a lot of smoke, from the scavenged wood), rises and often flows into her living area, leaving her living space and hanging clothes sooty.  I wonder how she gets her wood.

Only able to walk a little bit each day, Luz Dina sits at home and worries a lot.  After her husband died, years ago, she sold most of her land, keeping just enough for a little house.  No electricity, no lights for the last 15 years other than a petroleum burning “lamp,” and she says she can’t afford to keep chickens.

Things that might help her:

-         - A new roof (really, a new house, built to earthquake standards)

-         - A solar-charging light.

-         - A solar radio?  Something to focus on, other than the possibility of a 4th house collapse

-         - A gas stove (even a camp-style stove – $30 for the empty propane tank, $15 for a refill, not sure about stove price) and $15 every few months for gas.  Or perhaps for her new roof to be slanted the other direction, so that the smoke rises out.  Or a new wood burning stove with a chimney?  Or with a new house, her old house could be an out-kitchen – a common feature in this region.
-         - Refillable potable water container

-         - Other ideas?

Any donations or pledges I receive (paypal to gjemmott@gmail.com) by Friday morning (Aug 16) will get to her.  Feel free to put any conditions you like on the donation, and if I can’t fulfill them, I’ll refund your money.  School here was canceled this week, so I have a fair amount of spare time to shop around.  Your donations will inspire me to make progress.  Small physical objects can probably be transported here by a friend.